OK - let me try. Geez.
I think in or out of the truth it is our attitude towards others regardless of what others say or do, that makes a difference.
Agreed. So why does my local butcher [a JW elder] think it proper to refuse to speak with me when I visit his store? I speak to him. Who is being 'decent' here?
I think if someone is an apostate and puts them down all the time, they should be shunned.
Is that your definition of 'apostate'? I was being slandered by the use of that word long before I ever said a bad word about the religion. My sin was leaving. Nothing more - yet my MIL, who has been my MIL in the organization for 33 years now, does not speak to me. My two SIL's who have been family for 33 years do not speak to me. My best friend in the congregation for well over 25 years, does not speak to me. It is this very obvious Satanic lovelessness that moves me to speak out against them often. You, my friend, are putting the cart before the horse. Most jw's who leave would love to do it peacefully and without a fight - it is they who are attacked first, injured repeatedly by the shunning policy, that makes them speak out against evil religions like Jw's.
The churchs never used to allow homosexuality or fornicators adulterers now they except it some even marry gays, Gods standards have never changed but the churchs has. Jehovah's Witnesses standards have remained the same on these issues. Damned if we do and damned if we dont'.
Most of them still do not cover up pedophilia within. All the ones I have ever been in do not agree that the conduct you mention is acceptable [although some do I know]. And while the view of the organization on these specific matters has not changed, it has changed on plenty of others. Like the organ transplants, or use of blood products, alternative military choices, neutrality, education. Some of these 180 degree turns have cost people their lives.
What about the many that leave because there spouce have become a JW, I have known some brothers and especially sisters that have put up with shocking abuse but stayed because they wanted to set an example, and scriptually no adultry was proven for them to go.
I have known of several cases of 'shocking abuse' perpetrated by Jehovah's Witnesses on Jehovah's Witnesses. I have known of several JW's who obtained divorces to marry another without 'scriptural adultery' being proven. I know of at least one case where a MS lied and admitted to adultery he had never committed in order to 'free his wife'.
Conversely, I have known of dozens or hundreds of cases of people who were not Jw living healthy marriages, and who did not need to bend and twist and morph the 'rules' in order to know when a relationship was healthy or not, and to get out when it was not. All of these people respected the Bible, but were adults, making adult decisions without someone in Brooklyn to hold their hands in so doing.
You all talk like JW's have never done a decent thing in their lives, they are all tarnished or not worthy of a nice word.
I don't. I openly admit that I love Jehovah's Witnesses. I just hate the Demonic religion that the GB promotes.
And yes I have been DA and I have been isolated and alone. I know what it is like, but it is also ourselves we have to look at cant blame everyone else all the time because of our own failings.
And what failing is it to leave when we discover that we have been poisoned with lies? Lies that the GB know are lies? Non-ethical actions on the part of the GB? Immoral choices of the 'Faithful slave'? Do you honestly believe that a person who has spent 30, 40, 50 years of his/her life being mislead by liars representing themselves as the 'people of God' should just walk away, take the shunning, smile and say "Go ahead and slander me, after all what right to I have to actually discover that you are lying hypocrites, and actually tell someone.?' Your insolar thinking is foolish. I gave a lifetime of honest dedication to this false religious organization. The first 48 years of my life were spent in servitude to LIARS! Who are you to tell me, or others in such a situation, that we should not be angry and lash out about that? Jehovah's Witnesses are caught up in a LIE! It is not the 'Truth'. I feel a moral obligation to warn others about that. I am sorry that you are OK with the lies that they have told. Contrary to your broad-stroked assumptions that Jw's are the most moral people on the planet, I have found people of exceptionally high morals from many religions, and I have found many atheists with high morals. I would be glad to be trapped in a blackout with any of them. I have no desire to 'return to the vomit' I left as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and hope that I am never trapped in a blackout with them. THEY LIE! Jeff
